


Considerations

by Wonderwomanlovesyou



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Angst AF, Breakup, Explicit Language, F/M, Foul Language, implied relationship trouble, is there a happy ending?? i have no clue, it's a drabble??, learning to live without each other, who turned my one/two-shot into a multi-chapter fic YET AGAIN
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-09-16 19:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9286160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonderwomanlovesyou/pseuds/Wonderwomanlovesyou
Summary: Just a little drabble where Adrien doesn't take Marinette into consideration.  I wrote this quite a while ago, just thought I might upload it.





	1. Chapter 1

“Why hello there, My La-”

“Are you fucking kidding me? _England?_ ”

At some point between seeing his girlfriend’s name on his phone and hearing her screech into his ear, Adrien felt a heavy cloud of dread settling over him.

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit. I forgot to call her.  I forgot to even text her.  Oh shit oh shit oh shitfuck._

Feeling Plagg snickering in his front pocket, Adrien quickly tried to figure out a way to diffuse the situation.

“Shit, I’m sorry Marine-”

“ _Sorry?!_ ” Marinette exclaimed. You left the country and didn’t say a word to _anybody_ , including me or Nino, who, if you recall, you’d made plans to hang out with and who called me last night and left me a billion messages worried about you, so when I woke up I had to find out from _fucking Nathalie_ that you went to England on a spur-of-the-moment trip without telling anyone but your _dad_.”

Adrien could envision perfectly what she must be doing now, as furious as he could tell she was.  He could just see her pacing around her room, face as red as her spotted costume, and hands tightly fisted and at her sides

“I was only in London for like 12 hours, Mari, I honestly was there less than a day, and it was no big deal,” Adrien nervously began. “Some of the models I’ve been working with for the past few months offered for us to go out.  It sounded cool and they seemed nice, and while I didn’t expect them to take me to England, it was fun and-”

“I’m so glad you had fun, Adrien,” Marinette snapped. “I’m so glad that you had a great time being completely inconsiderate and treating the rest of the people in your life like they have no effect on your decision-making.  Like we have no vested interest in you.”

“Marinette, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you would get this angry, I...I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, honest. We had talked about going sometime soon, I didn’t think anything of it.”

“You don’t think anything’s a big deal! God, one of your friends could ask you to fly to the moon with them on a whim and you would do it! You’d known this was a possibility for days, at least, and yet you didn’t say a word when I talked to you!” she fumed.

“My friends asked if I wanted to go out, and I said yes!  I really didn’t think it was all that important! I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I didn’t think about it, a lot of stuff was going on, and my service was spotty at best while we were there!” Adrien felt himself getting more and more annoyed as she continued to yell at him.

“Adrien, you didn’t even think to tell me you were _leaving the country_ until you had already _fucking_ left!  Do you see how ridiculous that is? And the rest of us? We weren’t even a consideration!”

“I didn’t realize I needed your _permission_ to spend time with my friends!  I’ll be sure to ask you if you’re okay with me hanging out with Nino the next time he asks, or when Chloe asks to get lunch.”  He regretted saying Chloe’s name the moment it left his mouth, but was quickly snapped out of it by Marinette’s rebuttal, her voice now more furious than ever.

“Of _course_ you don’t need my permission to spend time with your friends, but when you _leave the fucking country_ , you should probably think to send me a text before you go! Even a ‘Hey, I’m going to London for a few hours, thought you should know,’ would have sufficed, but I didn’t even get a '#London' before Nathalie was telling me that you were off with people you’ve been friends with for less time than you and I have been dating, not to mention partners!”

“Something tells me you would have been more pissed off if I had just sent you a text saying '#London,'” he said.

“If I hadn’t called Nathalie, or you, would no one have told me? Would I have found out days after you got back? Would I have found out from a facebook post? Maybe twitter, people are pretty big on documenting celebrity outings on there.”

“You would not have found out from a _facebook post_ , my Lady, but I just forgot to tell you that this was happening!”

“You can’t just do reckless shit like this, Adrien!  I get that your friends are important to you, I do.  But you can’t just do shit like this when you have people invested in your life, people you say you care about as well.”

She took a deep breath before continuing, “We’ve been in a relationship for almost two years, Adrien.  And I’m still not a consideration when you do things like this.  You still act like things you do don’t affect me.”

“Princess, I know it was inconsiderate, and I’m sorry I forgot to tell you, but I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings in anyway with this.”

There was a short pause where he could hear Marinette taking shaky breaths before she finally spoke.

“It always comes back to this,” she said quietly.

“Always comes back to what?” he asked, on edge at the sudden loss of hostility in her voice and the defeated, sad tone that replaced it.

“It always comes back to the fact that I’m not a priority in your life - not important enough to even be a consideration.”  Adrien began to argue this, but she started again.  “I was going to call you last night to tell you that I _might_ be going on a week-long trip to New York for a fashion thing. In a little less than five months.  I asked your opinion on whether I should go with Alya to Marseille for three days this past summer, not because I needed your permission, but because you were a _consideration_ in my decision. You went to another _country_ without even letting me know, without even thinking of me until you were already there.

“What it always comes back to, Adrien, is that I am at the bottom of the list of people that are important in your life.  I’m not saying I should be the most important person in your life, not at all.  You have your dad, Nino... but it would be nice to not be the last person you think about when you do things.”

“Mari,”  he started. “I-

“No, Adrien,” she interrupted.  “Every time something like this happens, when you treat me like I’m not important to you, you always, _always_ say that I’m wrong, that of course I’m as important to you as you are to me, and maybe you act like it for a few days, but after that?  Your actions don’t line up with your words.  I’m the one that’s more invested, Adrien.  If something happens to us, _I_ will be the one that’s broken.  And you can say all you want that I’m wrong and you care just as much as I do, but I know it’s not true even if you don’t.”

“You _are_ important to me, Marinette.  Honestly, you are, and I don’t know what else to say to make you understand that I care about you too.”  Adrien was racking his brain on what to do to fix this, to make her see that of _course_ he loved her just as much as she loved him, but he couldn’t find anything.

“Sure. I’ve got to go,” she said.

“My Lady-” he implored, but the tone ending their conversation rung out before he could utter the last syllable.  And he was left speechless and stunned.


	2. Say Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immediate aftermath of last chapter's fight... and yet, no conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so flattered by everyone's wonderful reaction to the last chapter, which I originally wrote with no intention to share. It was the response of all of your comments that caused me to write more and to think about an actual direction for this fic. Stay tuned, I'll update as I can :) x

The next week was awful for Adrien.  He didn’t know how to fix whatever had gone wrong and even worse, he wasn’t sure that Marinette wanted to.  His calls and texts had gone unanswered except in the form of a selfie Alya had taken of she and Marinette getting ready to go out with a caption that read, “Who needs guys? Best friends are all you need <3 #ladiesnight #girlsnightout.”

At this point, he had caved and texted Alya asking about Marinette, but all she sent back was, “Not for me to say.  But in my opinion, she deserves to be treated way better.”

He didn’t know what to do.  Should he give her space to cool down or was this the time to be proving how important she was to him and to go above and beyond?  Should he let her come to him when she was ready and on her terms or should he show up on her doorstep with flowers?

It was lucky there hadn’t been any akuma lately, because he hadn’t even seen her at their normal patrols - he honestly didn’t know how they would work if something were to happen.

By the end of the week, however, Adrien was starting to seriously think about whether what she was saying had truth to it or not.  He knew he’d been distant.  He could see the sadness in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking... he’d been seeing it for months.  He had seen her hurting, hurting because of him, and told himself he would do better.  Over and over again, every time he caught a glimpse of her pain.  Silent promises to do better,  _ be _ better for her - and he never kept them for long.  He knew it.  All it did was give her glimpses of happiness, enough to let her convince herself that they were fine.  Happy, even.  Enough to get her to stay.

He wasn’t... where he should be, he realized, where she need him to be.  Mari needed someone strong to be there for her, to support her.  Not only was she dealing with ridiculous stress with work and school, her mom was dealing with a bunch of complicated medical problems that doctors kept saying was genetic.  She was even considering taking time off from school to help her dad take care of her mom.  The last thing she needed to deal with was a boyfriend who treated her as badly as Adrien was realizing he’d been treating her.

Finally, Marinette texted him back.

M:   _ Hey. _

A:   _ Hi there. _

M:   _ Are you free tomorrow afternoon? _

A: _I can be._

M:   _Come by my apartment?  We should talk._

A:   _Is this a good we should talk or a bad we should talk?_

M:   _Will you come?_

A: _I’ll be there._

 

* * *

 

Marinette paced around her room after his last text.  Her mind was in jumbles, completely unsure of what she should do.  Of course, she knew what it was that she  _wanted_ to do.  She wanted to wrap her arms around her idiot boyfriend and forgive him and be happy again.  But rationally, she knew that there would be no point to that.  Her happiness would be fake and fragile and only in her own head. They would end up here again, with her hurting because of him and debating why she couldn't walk away.

She had always been the type of girl who could leave.  One foot out the door at all times.  (That the other foot tended to be in her mouth was irrelevant.  But amusing to note.)  She saw her parents have their beautiful and loving relationship and knew that she would hold out for that kind of happiness, and wouldn't stay just for the sake of staying.  This had left her withdrawn in every other relationship she'd had.  She refused to be vulnerable.  She was never the one who cared more.  But because of this, she'd never loved anyone before Adrien.  She had said once, a long time ago, that he would be a great first love to have.  And in many ways, he had been.

In the beginning, he had been so sweet.  His gentleman-like behavior and his naturally kind demeanor made him an amazing boyfriend at the beginning, they were such a big part of why she fell in love with him.  He took away her hesitation to fall in love and she fell for him the way her alter ego would dive off of buildings.  The only problem was that she didn't have a magical yoyo there to catch her before she hit the pavement.  And she recognized it as it happened.  The first time they told each other they loved each other, back in their last year of school together, she had been so scared.  She had told him that she cared too much and didn't like how it felt, tears pouring down her face all the while, so afraid that she would lose him.  He had wiped her eyes and told her there was no need to be afraid, he was just as lost in her as she was in him.  He hadn't known he was lying.

Marinette had always cared more, had always been more invested.  As their relationship went on, it became more and more obvious.  So many of the traits that she had fallen in love with... he no longer aimed them at her.  She had always admired what a good friend he was, putting his friends before everything else.  She had thought, once upon a time, that this attention to caring for his friends would extend to his girlfriend, but over time, it became clear that it wasn't going to be that way.  Not only did he put his close friends before her (which upon occasion, she could understand - she had no intention to be the girlfriend that demanded all her boyfriend's attention at all times) but he put people he barely knew ahead of her.  Friends he had known for a few months suddenly took priority, and not just in small ways.  Their wants and demands of him always eclipsed her needs, partially because, as starved for affection and friendship as Adrien had been as a child, he was unable to let them down.  Somehow, though, that attitude didn't apply to her.

Of course, he claimed still that she was as important to him as he was to her, but Marinette (and everyone else) could see that it wasn't true.  Alya had told her on more than one occasion that she thought Marinette deserved better.

"I know you love him, girl," she had said once.  "But eventually you're going to have to look past what he says he wants... and see what he's actually putting in the work for."

Marinette knew Alya was right.  Adrien could say how much he cared about Marinette until the cows came home, but no amount of sweet words murmured in her ear would change the fact that she poured her soul into him and he couldn't do so back.

She knew what she needed to do... she just needed the strength to do it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides* I'm sorry for everything. I'm also sorry that though I have like 3 different possible ways for this story to go, they all include major suffering on both Marinette and Adrien's parts. Absolute destruction, in Adrien's case. But I really hope you liked the new chapter and that you keep reading! Thank you all for your support while I figure out how to best hurt our beloved children <3 x


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the BILLION year wait on this. I've had part of this chapter written as a draft since like June, but every time I sat down and tried to write more, it wouldn't come out correctly. I think a big part of it was that I was torn over how I wanted the story to go, along with a general lack of inspiration. This story started just as a way to process feelings, to understand situations... and it's become more than that now, but it's still sometimes hard to separate the work from the situation that created it.  
> However! I received the most amazing comment of my life today when I randomly decided to check my inbox on here, from a user named "Eekhoorntjes". I read it at work and had to take a bit of a walk so I didn't cry at my desk! Thank you so much, dear, for the thoughtful and beautiful comment - you're the reason I'm trying to pick up this fic again!!! This chapter is dedicated to you, I hope you enjoy it (and the little snuck-in reference to your comment)!  
> And without further ado~

Marinette jumped as she heard her boyfriend's boots hit her roof, but didn't leave her seat, pretending as if she could be thinking about literally anything besides the conversation about to occur.

Alya had come over last night after Marinette called her and told her that she had scheduled this meeting with Adrien. What Marinette wouldn't give to have Alya with her now - but she knew that this needed to be between her and the boy she once thought would be the love of her life. As it was, Alya was currently downstairs, knowing that her best friend services would be desperately needed once everything was said and done. Her phone chimed.

_A:  I'm here._

_M:  Just come on in._

She felt her eyes close in a wince but didn't look up from her desk when he opened her window, jumped into her room, and detransformed.  Even the familiar electric sensation of the magic washing over them couldn't comfort her now.

"Hey, Plagg," she murmured with a small smile to the kwami as he floated over to her.

His response was a soft and more somber look than she had ever seen on him, a delicate paw-touch to the cheek, and a whispered, "I'm sorry, kid."

She managed a slight nod of thanks and watched him float over to Tikki, the two of them hiding away to give their holders some privacy.

"Hey," his voice was quiet behind her.

And there it was.  The first strike against her ready-to-break heart.  Her chest tightened up and her eyes fell shut again.

"Hey," she managed to choke out.

"Marinette?"  She had always thought the phrase "ripped my heart out" was cliche and overexaggerated.  But hearing him say her name with such a broken tone, she found no other phrase adequately described what she was feeling.  She was honestly surprised by how vividly real the sensation of a hand in her chest was, grabbing and squeezing her heart and pulling it out, one snapping heartstring at a time.  She instantly remembered how, but in the early days of their relationship, he would say her name and she would be breathless from how it would suddenly become so much more than three simple syllables, how it seemed to fall like a kiss from his lips, reverent and beautiful.  The comparison was gut-wrenching and she felt the ache begin in renewed force once again.

"Can you please look at me?" he pleaded.  And maybe it wasn't magic, but it was definitely miraculous - how, despite the pain in her chest, Marinette managed to force herself to turn and face him.  And, hands shaking, she brought her eyes to his.  Looking into the eyes she had fallen in love with so many years ago in the rain under a shared umbrella.

She saw everything she was feeling reflected in those eyes, permeated with thick guilt.  How could she do this?  How could she break both their hearts?  She knew she was still in love with him, so, so deeply in love with him.  She wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around his neck and cry.  Wanted to whisper that everything would be okay, that they would work it out. That she loved him enough to stay.

But she knew that loving him enough to stay wasn't the problem.  Loving herself enough to walk away was.

"Mari, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about London..."

"Please," she blurted out.  "Don't."

"I really didn't mean to hurt you," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I know you didn't," she replied truthfully.  "I just... don't think I can take this anymore, Adrien."

He swallowed thickly.

"What can I do to fix this?" he asked, looking at the ground.

"I don't-"

" _Please,_ " he pleaded.  There was a hint of a sob in the word and once again Marinette felt her resolve waiver.  "Let me fix this."

"Adrien, it's been months and months of nothing but you treating me like I mean nothing to you, months of our friends asking me why I choose to stay.  Months of them quietly remarking how they can watch the way you act with me switch the minute one of your friends comes around.  Months of them telling me to end things-"

"THEN END IT! _"_ his voice cracked as her heart did.

"GOD DAMN IT, ADRIEN, DO YOU THINK I WANT TO?" she yelled back, standing up suddenly.  She started walking forward, every step bringing her closer to him.  "Do you think I  _want_ to walk away from you? That I  _want_ to try to force myself to stop loving you?  Of course I don't. But I can't do this anymore!  I  _can't_ stay in a relationship where I'm not important to the other person.  I  _can't_ keep putting myself through heartbreak after heartbreak to keep you.  I _won't_ do this anymore."

Adrien brought his eyes to the floor again.

"Marinette..."

A broken breath blew through her.  When he looked back up, her eyes were staring right into his, tears mixing with a challenge.

"I don't know how to live without you," he said.  "I don't want to, not now, not ever.  I'm sorry I've let myself take you for granted, I'm sorry that I haven't spent time every day proving that I love you, making sure you know that you  _are_ the most important person in the world to me.  Maybe it's because of timing.  We've been together as we grew up, while we became adults and figured out what that meant.  Maybe..."

He choked back a sob.  "Maybe because I never had to be without you, because I never learned how to... You've been there for me since the first moment I met you.  My entire adult life, I've had your support and your love, and I- I didn't give it back.  I never had to learn how to have you in my life, you were just _there,_ a part of it.  Inherently.  You were never something I had to work for."

"I never wanted you to feel like you had to work for me," she said.  "I saw how your father made you work for his affection, how everyone around you wanted something from you.  I never wanted to be that."

"And I never wanted you to feel like you weren't important to me.  I was so scared of losing everyone else by not keeping them happy - I knew that would never happen with you.  But that was no excuse for not treating you better, for not prioritizing you the way you deserved."

Her hand inched upwards, as if with a mind of its own.  She couldn't help but think maybe it felt as at home on his skin as she felt when she was with him.  Her fingertips gently rested on his cheek and he leaned into her touch, as he always did.

"We have to learn how to be apart," she said quietly, tears streaming steadily down her face.

"Yeah."  His eyes were leaking consistently now, too.  He took a deep breath, shuddering.  "I... I love you, Marinette."

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard.  "I love you, Adrien."

She rose, one last time, onto the tips of her toes and brought her lips to his.  Both of them bowed forward into each other, knowing that this was all they would have.  And when they pulled back she moved her hand to his hair, trying to memorize the feeling of the strands moving through her fingers, suddenly terrified from the idea that one day she might forget the sensation she so dearly loved.  His hand wrapped around her delicate wrist and held on for a moment before she stilled, and he brought her hand to his lips.

"My Lady," he said as he bowed.

"Minou,"  she breathed.  He rose out of the bow and released her hand, tearing his eyes away from her and turning around.

"Plagg, claws out."

And then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY  
> THIS NEEDED TO HAPPEN, I KNOW  
> BUT DAMN IT HURT TO WRITE THIS  
> (please don't hate me, I've been tied down to the conductor's seat of the angst train for too long now)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this random thing my brain threw out! Let me know what you thought!


End file.
